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Hm, how about, for those that prefer it, the PL sits in their squad's RO channel? Would they in such a case still be able to talk to and receive SitReps from every other RO, and still be able to communicate with the squad they are a member of? In such a case, would they need an additional Shout to "talk to everyone"?

And what if it is a small TacGir unit, 2-3 squads, coordinating with the Casual Platoon? In such a case a TacGir PL can also be SL. They are just in charge of coordinating the rest of the TacGir.

Although I don't have any in-depth knowledge or experience of how to set up Mumble, Nullk is right about the current channels being an absolute mess. The essence of what he suggests seems to be standardising the unit channels to accommodate whatever is needed, without having twenty unused 'this is for tuesday afternoons' channels.

Originally Posted by Nullkigan

A ‘unit’ is a simply an amorphous number of people who are tied to the chain of command by a handler of some sort, be that a squad leader, platoon leader or even the SupGir.

The state the channels are currently in may just be a chaotic in-between while we sort them out properly, but the principle of having standardised, generic channels that can be used for whatever makes total sense.

We do need a standardised system, but also we need to accommodate for people wanting to play the game in different ways. Playing a mission in ArmA is reasonably standard and repeatable. It's not really the case with Planetside 2, people will drop in and out plus there's no real start or end to the game.

We also do already have units but they are only fully in use for the TACGIR comms. I guess we just need to experiment with these comms further until we are happy with how they work and then roll them out across all the PS2 channels in a straighht forward way that gives everyone a place to play in the way they want, be it all in one channel or divided up by group.

Although I don't have any in-depth knowledge or experience of how to set up Mumble, Nullk is right about the current channels being an absolute mess. The essence of what he suggests seems to be standardising the unit channels to accommodate whatever is needed, without having twenty unused 'this is for tuesday afternoons' channels.

The state the channels are currently in may just be a chaotic in-between while we sort them out properly, but the principle of having standardised, generic channels that can be used for whatever makes total sense.

Good point, there. We need to simplify our comms structure. I think the hardest part, setting only two keybinds for all cases, is done. We need to see how it plays out, and then revisit the channel structure.

We do need a standardised system, but also we need to accommodate for people wanting to play the game in different ways. Playing a mission in ArmA is reasonably standard and repeatable. It's not really the case with Planetside 2, people will drop in and out plus there's no real start or end to the game.

We also do already have units but they are only fully in use for the TACGIR comms. I guess we just need to experiment with these comms further until we are happy with how they work and then roll them out across all the PS2 channels in a straighht forward way that gives everyone a place to play in the way they want, be it all in one channel or divided up by group.

What I'm writing-too-many-words about is tidying up the channels and giving them a more logical, clear structure. Not changing the way anyone plays or saying that they must play in a specific manner. Exactly as your last sentence says.

Do not misunderstand - A ‘unit’ is a simply an amorphous number of people who are tied to the chain of command by a handler of some sort, be that a squad leader, platoon leader or even the SupGir.

If there's a group of people that want to be in the All Together channel and completely ignore the more organised players, there is no problem with doing that. They are still a 'unit' as far as comms are concerned. In the outlines above (and currently in use), they're one of the few units to get a specially marked channel and would simply not have a liaison role / ignore the SG.

Similarly, if a group thinks 24 players is ideal for a channel, they'd just occupy a channel at the squad level. There's no need to make a specific mumble channel for "Alpha and Bravo" because whatever channel "Alpha and Bravo" is in is "Alpha and Bravo"'s channel. Even if they were to jump into "Audiences with the Viking Hat" or "Far Cry 3 Coop" (though in those cases you'd run into serious problems with intersquad chat...)

If there's a group of people who want to mark a channel up as "Super Special Ningiraffe Scout Squad" and play outside of both the tactical organisation and the all together organisations, they can dynamically create subchannels. Same goes for a lib team that's part of a squad (but then the binds will break down, I expect).

The comparison with arma breaks down rather rapidly because arma requires a much more dynamic comms structure, what with people constantly dying and every mission having a different organisational layout. I was wastefully using it to initially illustrate a general layout and didn't really explain anything further. A single, well thought out comms structure can be adapted to a multitude of gameplay situations and player group organisations. As a group you've already identified that structure, so all that needs working on is the delivery / polish / clarity / presentation (delete as appropriate).

Hm, how about, for those that prefer it, the PL sits in their squad's RO channel? Would they in such a case still be able to talk to and receive SitReps from every other RO, and still be able to communicate with the squad they are a member of? In such a case, would they need an additional Shout to "talk to everyone"?

This works. I believe a new keybind could be set to "join channel Platoon Leader" and "push-to-talk". That would temporarily move the PL to the PL channel and address everyone in the platoon for announcements. But don't take my word for it; try it for yourselves! Should be fairly straightforward.

Originally Posted by MrEclectic

And what if it is a small TacGir unit, 2-3 squads, coordinating with the Casual Platoon? In such a case a TacGir PL can also be SL. They are just in charge of coordinating the rest of the TacGir.

Actually, this is the intent behind the "everyday" setup that seems to confuse Ridebird. (Do we need better names?) It's a place for people to play the herd game, and for TACGIR to play alongside, in the same platoon. PL should sit in the RO channel of either of the groups, but never the SL channel, because then they wouldn't hear the ROs talking.

What I'm writing-too-many-words about is tidying up the channels and giving them a more logical, clear structure. Not changing the way anyone plays or saying that they must play in a specific manner. Exactly as your last sentence says.
...
Similarly, if a group thinks 24 players is ideal for a channel, they'd just occupy a channel at the squad level. There's no need to make a specific mumble channel for "Alpha and Bravo" because whatever channel "Alpha and Bravo" is in is "Alpha and Bravo"'s channel. Even if they were to jump into "Audiences with the Viking Hat" or "Far Cry 3 Coop" (though in those cases you'd run into serious problems with intersquad chat...)

I think I see what you're trying to get at now, thanks! So let me see if I can respond, with my reasoning behind the current structure:

The names of the channels are entirely irrelevant to their function, agreed. But, names have been given to match in-game names of squads (which we cannot change in any way), which makes it a whole lot easier to find the right channel. PS2 is very much in-your-face about the fact that you are in a squad, and that that squad has a name. Having the same names of channels in Mumble has proven really helpful.

The everyday platoon with All together, A+B and C+D is there to allow people to easily play in either style (everyone together, or 2 squads per channel), simply by hopping into the channel corresponsing to the chosen playstyle and what squad they're in. The TACGIR everyday unit is there to allow tactically minded players to hop over into squad channels without losing contact with the main group. TO avoid having to fiddle with the Mumble channels, there's always at least one squad channel in the TACGIR everyday unit. That's all there is to that.

The large amount of channels (several platoons, several units in each, several squads per unit etc.) is there simply because: it takes time to set them up, and we will be needing them soon enough, or have been needing them already. The last Call to Arms saw 220 players, that's nearly 5 full Planetside 2 platoons! We only have channels set up for two at the moment.
The many LEVELS of channels is there to allow a hierarchy of:

All SLs in a platoon can talk to each other and no-one else (also further subdivided into groups of squads for coordination)

Everyone in a squad (SL, RO and soldiers) can talk to each other

For this to work out, I believe that each level in the hierarchy is important, because the only thing we can do to define what is allowed to reach the ears of people in a given channel is from what level in the hierarchy the speaker is, relative to the listener's channel. That is, without resorting to usergroups, which is just icky to maintain.

We've managed to find a way to achieve all this with just two keybinds (PTT and one whisper), except for PL, who by necessity must separate between whispering upwards to SG and whispering downwards to ROs. This simply by selecting the correct channel to sit in.

With this in mind, could you clarify what it is you find not being logical? I certainly won't mind a pair of fresh eyes on this, but you need to know what needs we're trying to satisfy here.

I agree that the unit concept, as we've used it, could probably go away. What we'd lose then, is the possibility to group only certain SLs together in their private coordination channel. This might not be needed though, and may in fact be a case of over-design on my part. Is this what's confusing the issue?

Actually, this is the intent behind the "everyday" setup that seems to confuse Ridebird. (Do we need better names?) It's a place for people to play the herd game, and for TACGIR to play alongside, in the same platoon. PL should sit in the RO channel of either of the groups, but never the SL channel, because then they wouldn't hear the ROs talking.

Think this relates to the point about consistency/simplicity I was pulling from Nullk's comments. Do we even need a specific set up for this? Wouldn't it be simpler to just use a general platoon channel with Alpha/Bravo/Charlie/Delta channels, with TacGir operating in channels C/D and the alltogether group occupying channel A? So basically just channels that follow the in-game structure, but not explicitly tied to squads, to be used as required (eg. it would be fairly obvious to people on a wednesday to all join channel A if that's where everyone is).

Sorry if I'm pointing out the obvious, or if I have got this wrong at all.

edit: think you may have just rendered this null with your last post, but don't have time to read it >.<

Although I don't have any in-depth knowledge or experience of how to set up Mumble, Nullk is right about the current channels being an absolute mess.

See, it really isn't. There is a clear structure. The intent might not be clear, because, let's be frank, you don't know the whole of my reasoning behind the setup, and nor can you be expected to. I've tried to clarify some of that with the previous post.

Originally Posted by Rizlar

The essence of what he suggests seems to be standardising the unit channels to accommodate whatever is needed, without having twenty unused 'this is for tuesday afternoons' channels.

Yeah, see, there is none of this. The names of the channels has no bearing on their use. There are 8 different named squad channels, not because we must use just the right ones at any given time, or anything. It's just that setting each of these up takes around 10 minutes, and rather than have to do that on the fly, like last Thursday, is really no fun. Hence lots of unused channels, waiting for the time when we do have that many people online.

There are channels named "Air group" etc, because that is who last used them. Channels can change names without changing their behaviour.

Now, if this confuses people, I guess we could just name them something generic, like Alpha to Delta and have no more than four squad channels in a platoon. Is this the problem? I really fail to see what everyone finds to be the problem, but then I'm the one who set all of this up... The only thing I know is that if channels have generic names, people will keep asking what bloody channel they should be in all the time. "I'm gonna play with the air group, where should I be?"

Jesus, I'm really rambling. Could someone clarify what the problem is, why things seem so confusing, and maybe we can start from there.

Think this relates to the point about consistency/simplicity I was pulling from Nullk's comments. Do we even need a specific set up for this? Wouldn't it be simpler to just use a general platoon channel with Alpha/Bravo/Charlie/Delta channels, with TacGir operating in channels C/D and the alltogether group occupying channel A? So basically just channels that follow the in-game structure, but not explicitly tied to squads, to be used as required (eg. it would be fairly obvious to people on a wednesday to all join channel A if that's where everyone is).

Sorry if I'm pointing out the obvious, or if I have got this wrong at all.

edit: think you may have just rendered this null with your last post, but don't have time to read it >.<

Sure, I guess that could work if people prefer it that way. I don't really care either way.

Actually, I can see the merit to this idea. I'll simply remove the "everyday" setup, since that is probably more distracting than it is useful. I'll just convert all of these channels into regular squad channels and dump them into the parking channel.

We'll have a Platoon 1 channel with Unit 1 containing squad channels for Alpha through Delta. That sound good to you?

We could remove the unit concept, but that'd require a rearrangement of the rules, so I'm hesitant to do that until I'm sure we won't want to use them ever again. SO, please, thos who've tried SLing, do you think it is useful to be able to group squads together into units smaller than platoon size, for SL-to-SL coordination purposes?

Ahh, didn't realise stuff like 'Air Group' was just an easily re-namable regular channel. Still reckon standardised, 4-squad platoon channels are a good idea, to keep it simple and adaptable, but sounds like a lot of the apparent mess I was seeing is just names, not structural. Carry on! I will leave you guys who know what you are talking about alone now...

Hehe, no worries. But yeah, the elegant thing with this is, we can sit in whatever fucking channel we want, and we can call them whatever the fuck we want. The only thing that matters is the structure. This might be counter-intuitive though, or maybe it's a messaging/information transfer problem.

I have checked out the "Join Channel" shortcut in Mumble, btw. It is not the shortcut we are looking for. *mystical hand wave* Bind Join channel to the same key as a whisper to a channel, and you will hop over to that channel. So far so good. Problem is, you'll have no idea where you came from, so you'll need to get back in there afterwards. No good for this.

I've set up the regular platoon structure for our comms now, removed all (make that "most") of the odd names that were making people confused, plopped four squad channels (and one for a dedicated air squad) into the same unit channel in platoon 1.

I dont ser how there's a problem or what's being discussed. Keep units of course. Don't mention them if that is confusing, but they are there so SLs cant talk to eachother. I don't think the amount of sub channels are that confusing. Not confusing enough to switch system.

"Quantacat's name is still recognised even if he watches on with detached eyes like Peter Molyneux over a cube in 3D space, staring at it with tears in his eyes, softly whispering... Someday they'll get it." - The Conclave

This thread should be renamed or at least have a huge disclaimer at the start that this is ONLY for those VERY interested in the Mumble setup and technicalities and such. New players should never go here.

Done.

Re: the channel structure
The only note I would add here is to echo the suggestions that, whatever the structure, the answer to the question "which channel do I join" should be as absolutely clear as possible to new players.

I would like to put up my name for squad leading and radio operating, but the interface of my Mumble installation is horribly bugged. This makes it impossible to set up shortcuts, and therefore I cannot even be squad leader with the new TACGIR system.

Clicking boxes, buttons and drop-down menus is only working intermittently and randomly. It is as if different parts of the GUI become accesible while others are locked. I have tried reinstalling Mumble, both 1.2.3 and 1.2.4, but the problems persist.

Does anyone know how to fix this problem, so that I can set up the correct shortcuts? Is it possible to bypass the GUI and manually add the needed shortcuts?

Before TACGIR, I could have signed up for SL, but as it is now with the new SL-SL chat, I cannot.